Watch and read: Artist talks and interviews

Watch or read interviews with Aotearoa New Zealand artists – ranging from contemporary jewellers to sculptors, designers, painters, photographers, and more, talking about their works and methods.

Watch interviews with artists, photographers, and makers

An older man sitting in a chair holding A4 sheets of paper and talking to someone off camera. There are rolling files behind him.

Watch: Matt Pine, Māori artist

This video is the last recording made with senior Māori artist Matt Pine a few months before his death in 2021.

Still from a video. Shows three women underneath a large-scale weaving that they are working on, looking at its finer details

Watch: Mataaho Collective discuss their monumental installation Takapau

Takapau is the centrepiece of Mataaho Collective’s show Te Puni Aroaro, a showcase the ever-changing nature of customary textile practices.

A woman talking to someone off screen and sitting in an artist studio.

Watch: Raewyn Atkinson, clay artist

Raewyn Atkinson filmed ‘I too am in Paradise II’ over 10 months, recording the life cycle of an organic installation made in her Wellington garden.

A man with a beard is looking off camera at someone interviewing him. He is in a museum storeroom.

Watch: Matthew McIntyre-Wilson, Māori artist

Hīnaki are skilfully made forms used as eel traps. They are baited and then placed in a river’s current, or weighted down on the riverbed where the eels enter the inverted openings and can’t escape. Wellington artist Matthew McIntyre-Wilson talks to Mātauranga Māori Curator Isaac Te Awa about learning from the hīnaki in our collection.

Head and shoulders of a woman with dark hair and dressed in black standing in a gallery

Watch: Natalie Robertson, Ngāti Porou photographer

Natalie Robertson describes the photographs in her series, ‘Tātara e maru ana – The sacred rain cape of Waiapu’ as visual documentation, but they’re also poetic and lyrical.

A man with white hair is standing in a room that has large purple incense sticks lying against the wall.

Watch: Dane Mitchell talks about ‘Iris, Iris, Iris’

Artist Dane Mitchell explains the role of the intriguing elements in his installation ‘Iris, Iris, Iris’.

A brown and white patterned masi or tapa cloth

Watch: Robin White – The making of ‘That Vase’

In 2019, Dame Robin White invited a small team from Te Papa to visit her on location in Lautoka Fiji as she completed That Vase, a masi (Fijian tapa) made with her collaborator Tamari Cabeikanacea.

Bill Culbert puts the finishing touches to his art work that involves a number of strip lights and milk bottles on the floor

Watch: Bill Culbert installing ‘Daylight flotsam Venice’ (2013) and ‘Drop’ (2013)

Artist Bill Culbert created 'Daylight flotsam Venice' (2013) and 'Drop' (2013) as part of his exhibition at the Venice Biennale, where he represented New Zealand in 2013. Here, he installs the work for their first exhibition in New Zealand at Te Papa.

Lisa Reihana with a painted tattoo on her chin

Watch: Lisa Reihana: Wog Features

In in Pursuit of Venus [infected], Lisa Reihana uses costume carefully to construct the encounters between European and Pacific cultures. She has been exploring how costume creates character throughout her artistic career. One of the earliest examples is Wog Features (1990). Watch an excerpt here.

Watch: In conversation with fashion designer Lindah Lepou

Lindah Lepou talks about being a fa’faafine designer, her spirituality, and the evolution of Pacific and Māori couture.

A man holds some imperfect shells in his hands

Watch: Interviews with four New Zealand jewellers

Jewellers Lisa Walker, John Edgar, Warwick Freeman, and Alan Preston discuss their work and inspiration.

Watch: Interviews with Lisa Reihana

Lisa speaks about the meanings behind 'Lisa Reihana: Emissaries', the logistics of exhibiting, and making time-based digital art.

Watch: Tiffany Singh talks about Indra’s bow

“There’s a repositioning for me of bringing things out of the everyday and positioning them as something that’s very sacred.”

Watch: Tony Fomison at work

See rare footage of Tony Fomison at work, captured on glorious Super 8 by New Zealand experimental film-maker Martin Rumsby.

Read or listen to interviews

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